BIOCHAR: SUSTAINABLE VALUE FOR YOU

THE DO WELL BY DOING GOOD TRAINING

CLICK TO EDIT MASTER TITLE STYLE WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO LEARN?

In Part 1 (Smoke) you learned:

Why we care about the smoke

How much smoke there is

How to make a biochar machine to get rid of it

In Part 2 (Biochar) you will learn:

How to make value from biochar

How to make biochar fertilizer

How to make improved animal feed

How to keep your animals healthy

How to keep your family healthy

In short:

How to reduce costs

Increase income

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This training is about value. It is about the rewards of eliminating smoke by making biochar.

This training is not about forcing people to do something; it is about showing them how to do something valuable to them.

Biochar

Reduce agrochemical costs, increase crop yields and raise income in agriculture.

Make farm animals fatter and chickens lay more eggs, make all animals healthier, and get rid of their smell.

Save you from pesticides although that is for another training.

BIOCHAR: A SUSTAINABLE, LONG-TERM SOLUTION TO THE SMOKE PROBLEM

CLICK TO EDIT MASTER TITLE STYLE IF ONLY, RIGHT?

CLICK TO EDIT MASTER TITLE STYLE FARMING IN NORTH THAILAND?

Our soils are

Nutrient Poor

Too Compacted

Poor at Water Absorption/Water Retention

Too Acid (Very Low pH)

Deficient in Organic Matter

Dead No No Soil Life, No Microbes, Fungi, Worms

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Used properly, biochar can:

Improve soil structure Improve water penetration Improve water retention Increase pH (make your soil less acid) Increase soil life (microbes, fungi, worms)

)

You can make it yourself

BIOCHAR SOIL AMENDMENT

CAN SOLVE ALL OF THESE PROBLEMS

CLICK TO EDIT MASTER TITLE STYLE WHY NOW? CLIMATE CHANGE AND YOU

The weather is getting hotter.

North Thailand is getting drier.

The rainy season is getting later and less predictable.

When rain falls we get big storms and floods that rush off down the river leaving nothing behind in the ground.

These conditions will continue to get worse and worse.

If we do not change how we farm now, climate change will soon destroy agriculture in North Thailand

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Thailand just joined ASEAN. Thai farmers make less money for every ton of rice or fruit or vegetables they raise than farmers in any other ASEAN country.

Why? Because you spend so much money on chemicals!

WHY NOW? MONEY

A woman I met in MaeJo is selling compost for 30 THB per kilogram At this price you can sell biochar for 30,000 THB per ton.

Think about it.

Our training is about stopping smoke. But this is about why stopping the smoke is not a burden, it is a business opportunity

Farmers

House wives

Tambons

Clinics

WHY NOW? YOUR MONEY

If you have leaves, straw, stalks, wood chips, etc, you can make

biochar and make money.

This is different from the usual anti-smoke training.

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What is the problem?

Our soils are mostly clay

They are dense, heavy when wet, hard when dry

Water just runs off when it rains or we irrigate

Result?

Poor water penetration.

Poor fertilizer penetration.

Poor water retention.

Floods down stream.

No water early in the dry season, poor crop growth.

SOIL STRUCTURE AND WATER RETENTION

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Biochar added to soil, even clay, makes the soil more porous

Water will penetrate porous soil more easily

Biochar in soil will absorb lots and lots of water

Wet biochar holds enough water to add two extra days between waterings

BIOCHAR, SOIL STRUCTURE AND WATER RETENTION

Water runs off hard

packed clay Water penetrates easily where

biochar particles have made

spaces

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pH measures how acid your soil is

pH runs from 1 (acid) to 14 (alkaline)

A pH of 7 is neutral and most plants like soil that is around pH 7

They grow best at pH 7 because all of the nutrients in the soil are available to them.

Our soils are very acid pH 4.5 -5.5

In acid soils the most important nutrients are not available to plants.

SOIL pH AND YOU

pH 7

Our Soil pH

4.5 5.5

Very Little N, P, K,

S, Ca, Mg

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YOUR

SOIL BIOCHAR

DIRECTION OF

IMPROVEMENT

BIOCHAR, pH AND NUTRIENT AVAILABILITY

Biochar has permanent pH of 8

Adding biochar pH in the direction of 8

Raising the pH unlocks access to many nutrients in soil

We will teach you how to make biochar fertilizer with pH 10!

CLICK TO EDIT MASTER TITLE STYLE SOIL LIFE AND YOU

Healthy soil is alive with microbes, fungi and worms

Live soil feeds your plants

Plants cannot eat N, P, K or other mineral nutrients; they need soil life to eat them first then pee!

You plants take up bug pee

Soil life needs oxygen

Worms and fungi open the soil to let the air in

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The best of bug condos

Tiny holes in the surface of biochar make nice condos for soil life.

The minerals adsorbed to the surface of biochar particles attract microbiota.

Microbe colonies that develop around biochar particles control the growth of microbes that make plants sick.

The microbes and fungi attract worms that make holes in the soil to bring oxygen underground.

BIOCHAR AND SOIL LIFE

Tiny fungus grows on the

biochar surface

Microbiota on surface of biochar seen through

scanning electron microscope